Minister of Communications and Information Society (MCSI) Lucian Sova on Monday morning requested the resignation of all members of the Romanian Post Company’s Board of Directors, as well as of acting managing director Andrei Stanescu, due to the poor management registered in the last year, reads a release of the relevant ministry.

Moreover, Sova sent the ministry’s Audit Body to the Romanian Post National Company.

“The Minister of Communications and Information Society Lucian Sova has summoned this morning an emergency sitting at the Romanian Post National Company and has asked all members of the Board of Directors and acting managing director Andrei Stanescu to resign, due to the poor management registered in the last year. At the same time, Lucian Sova decided to send the ministry’s Audit Body to the Romanian Post. The audit body will check, inter alia, the implementation of the measures decided by the Competition Council on the occasion of the enforcement of the sanction that has led to the pile-up of debts owed to the state budget. The MCSI proceeds to all legal possible measures to avoid this company’s insolvency and for it to be able to enforce a strategic plan of recovery drafted in the past two months,” the release adds.

“The Ministry considers that the situation the company finds itself in is the result of not only the “burdensome inheritance” but also of the perpetuation of the same conditions, without its executive or non-executive management taking any legal measure to relaunch its activity. The Communications Ministry warns that the entire leadership of the Romanian Post has the legal obligation to take all measures so that the company would not end up insolvent. Remaining passive and waiting for the majority shareholder to hike the registered capital, asking first of all for the hiking of the indemnities of the members of the Board of Directors, does not fall under the prerogative of any Chairman of the Board of Directors,” the Ministry pointed out on Monday.

Acting managing director Andrei Stanescu, former advisor to the European Grants Minister and the Finance Minister, took over the company’s leadership early this year. He was previously head of the company’s Legal, Audit and Human Resources Directorate. He also spent a long time working at the Victoria Palace, where he also handled the issues of the technicians who were preparing the Premiers’ videoconferences.

The Romanian Post’s final result in fiscal year 2016 consists of a gross profit of RON 17.2 million (EUR 3.8 million), up from a gross loss of RON 29.4 million in 2015, according to the data announced by the national post. Compared to the figure included in the budget approved by the Government, namely RON 4 million, the gross profit registered in 2016 was 4.3 times higher. Last year, the Competition Council ruled a EUR 7.4 million fine against the Romanian Post, for failure to fulfil the obligations set following an investigation finalised in 2010. Back then, the Post had been fined EUR 24 million for abuse of dominant position.